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Conjoined Twins Cases: Abby & Brittany

Check out the amazing story of conjoined twins Abby and Brittany, and other rare cases of twins who share the same body. One in 40,000 twin births result in conjoined babies, and out of those births, barely one percent of them survive to the age of one… but meet Abigail and Brittany Hensel, two sisters who are fused together at the torso. How do two totally different people live their lives sharing the same body? Let’s find out together.

Do you think you are having problems with your brother or sister and you wanna slam the door in their face without letting them inside your room? What if you were incapable to do that due to the fact that you and our sibling were joined at the hip, and NOT in the metaphorical way either… Siamese twin cases are rare, and very few survive the first year of life, and out of those who do, even fewer survive the surgeries that attempt to remove the two children.

Despite all odds, Abigail and Brittany Hensel, the conjoined twins of the Hansel family survived not only their first hour of life, but they miraculously survived 22 years and counting! The twins were born in 1990, and after they were born, the doctors said that they would die within an hour of their birth, but here they are alive and most certainly kicking, driving, traveling through Europe and lots more!

Not only are the girls defying all odds by surviving their terrible condition, but they are also living life to the fullest like normal people. They graduated college, and they are currently on the look out for a job. The two also have plans for motherhood, but they just haven’t worked out how they’ll do it yet.

Abigail and Brittany are dicephalic parapraxis twins, meaning that they are conjoined twins, each has her own head, a separate heart, stomach, spine and spinal cord, but still, they are fully symmetrical, and appear to be proportionate. They do however share the same reproductive organs, as you can clearly see in the image below.

Each girl controls her half of their body, hence is in charge of moving one of the arms or legs. If you’re wondering how that works, you should know that this process involved that as infants, the learning of physical processes tied to bodily coordination, things we take for granted, like clapping, crawling, and walking required the cooperation of both twins. Both Abby and Brittany are able to eat and write both separately (check twins born separately, months apart) and simultaneously, but if they want to jog and swim, the two must be coordinated and alternate symmetrically.

The two sisters are no strangers to the television world, they were invited on Oprah when they were just six, and they have also starred in their own reality TV shows. And guess what? They are also getting ready for the grand premiere of a third reality show that follows them through their European adventure. Check out more photos of Abby & Brittany below:

And below you can watch some videos of Abigail and Brittany Hensel at different ages: